The ACV/GARDS crew attended the Master Painters Assoc Vic/Tassie – Melbourne Annual members meeting 14/6/17 – the Painter and Decorators are now much more asbestos aware – great bunch of tradies – with some terrific questions – we had an enjoyable night. We want to thank all for making us feel very welcome. We have forged some new friendships and look forward to a great association together.

The ACV/GARDS team were very privileged and honoured today 7/6/2017 to have the opportunity to talk with a great bunch of apprentice painter & decorators at The Gordon TAFE in East Geelong about all things asbestos. It was a very interactive session with plenty of really thoughtful questions. We want to thank the TAFE lectures for attending and being a part of the session it was really good to have your input in this important lesson on making the apprentices asbestos aware. We wish the apprentices every success in the future with their chosen trade & we are sure they will take this knowledge they have gained today into their work places and spread the word among their peers and to family and friends. Thanks for making us feel very welcome. Great audience : )

The ACV/GARDS team were at Federation Training Newborough campus on the 31st May 2017 conducting an asbestos awareness session to 160 apprentices across many trades. It was really good to have plenty of student involvement with some very thought provoking questions. ACV/GARDS was also pleased to have the trade teachers involvement in the session, good to see them asking questions and giving examples of their experiences.

ACV/GARDS crew were lucky enough to have channel 9 regional TV there to do some interviews and watch and film the session in progress. This media segment went out on the channel 9 news that night and we hope that some of you caught it. If not I am endeavouring to see if it is placed on the channel 9 Facebook site so that I can send it out on our Facebook and attach it to this news item later. All in all a terrific session with a great bunch of apprentices. The apprentices completed questionnaires at the end of the session so ACV/GARDS could get the students take on how well we did delivering the message, we were pleased to read that they had learnt much and had found it very interesting. We can’t ask much more than that. Thank you to the trade teachers for supporting the session so well. We could not have done it without all of your support.

The ACV/GARDS team always enjoys coming out and meeting the newest members in the trades, it is a real honour that we get the chance to make them asbestos aware and try and keep them safe in the jobs they do in the future. Thanks to Federation Training Newborough for setting this up and supporting the cause. There are now 160 apprentices who have more knowledge now than they did a few days ago. : )

The ACV/GARDS team were at the Home and Leisure show with a display to the general public on asbestos awareness from Friday the 26th to Sunday the 28th of May – we talked with many people and gave out bags of information. Great chance to catch many people that we would not usually run into. Young and old a like, people doing home renovations and others trying to find out about disposal and removal. Residents came in from all over Gippsland, which encompasses other councils in the area that abut Latrobe City to ask about how to handle and dispose of asbestos in their council area. It was great meeting everyone and hearing about their asbestos issues. We are taking some of those issues that were conveyed to us and seeing if we can try and represent the residents who live in those areas and rectify their problems.

ACV/GARDS also had two very hard working volunteers on the Saturday, we would like to thank Graeme Hamilton and Dennis Day for volunteering and helping out at the display. You were both a terrific help and we were informed that the two of you had a really good time talking with everyone that came up on the day. We could not have done it without you both. ACV/GARDS were also lucky to have applied for sponsorship to Energy Australia Yallourn P/L for the site we hired and we were successful in being allocated the funds to do that – it was very pleasing to know that we were supported in this manner to deliver the information to the public. Big thank you to the Energy Australia team at Yallourn it was very much appreciated.

All in all a very successful 3 day event where we met and talked with many and gained some new supporters. : )